The thermal transfer printer presses solid ink coated on an ink ribbon against a sheet by a printing head to transfer, and thereby performs printing. The ink ribbon is wound around rolls and stored in a ribbon cassette, and the ink ribbon cassette has a removable configuration to be attachable and detachable to/from the thermal transfer printer body so as to replace the ribbon cassette itself when the ink ribbon has run out.
However, in the case of using the thermal transfer printer for business use particularly, for example, combining with another device such as a card processing device to use, since a large amount of ink ribbon is used, it is necessary to increase the diameter of the roll to wind the ink ribbon, and the cassette is increased in size.
Therefore, it requires considerable work to remove a size-increased heavy cassette from the thermal transfer printer and insert again, and more excellent operability and convenience is desired in attaching and detaching the cassette.
Patent Document 1 discloses a thermal transfer printer in which an eject member to release a lock of a ribbon cassette is slidably provided in the printer body, the lock is released by sliding the eject member, a push-out member provided in the eject member presses the ribbon cassette in the pulling-out direction in conjunction with the slide, and the ribbon cassette pops out by spring force.